


Room for Rent

by clearbluewater



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, M/M, Roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-01 00:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2753612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearbluewater/pseuds/clearbluewater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b>$400 / 1 br        1 Bedroom Available for Midget</b>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Fully furnished attic bedroom with really low ceilings available in a four bedroom house close to campus. You’d share the kitchen, living room, laundry room, and bathrooms with three male roommates, one giant wolf/bear/dog thing, and approximately 80 billion spiders. </p><p>The roommates are shitty. One of them is an alcoholic party animal, another is a seven-foot-tall brick shithouse who will break you in half if you look at him wrong, and I’m a business major trying to get my own company off the ground without the time for anyone’s bullshit, least of all yours.</p><p>Rent is $400 a month and you pay 1/4 of the utilities, which will be around $45 a month. The attic is very spacious and not at all drafty, but like I said, the ceilings are low. Smoking is not allowed, but I do it anyways. You could have a pet, but it will probably get eaten by the Beast. Lease is for the spring semester, Jan to May. Call or email Thorin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh God, posting this is probably so ill advised. I procrastination-wrote this instead of studying for finals. I haven't finished my other ongoing story. I scheduled myself to rewrite an entire novel this month. This chapter is already awkwardly autobiographical and it will probably only get more so. This is probably a terrible idea, but here it is.

“What about Bilbo?” Primula asked, handing Bilbo a cup of coffee. She had originally made it for herself before she recalled she was supposed to cut back on caffeine while pregnant, so she donated her cup to Bilbo.

            “Don’t you have anyone else to name your kid after beside your boring roommate?” Bilbo asked. He took a sip of the coffee and made a face. Too bitter. He had forgotten that Primula liked her coffee nearly black.

            “You’re not boring. And if we’re naming the baby after anyone, why shouldn’t it be me?” Drogo asked, joining them at the table.

            “Yes. I vote for Drogo Junior,” Bilbo said.

            “What if it’s a girl, though?”

            “Petunia? I like Petunia,” Drogo said.

            “Blegh,” Primula said, making a face.

            “What’s wrong with Petunia?” Drogo asked.

            “It seems too old maid-y.”

            Drogo put his arm around his wife and kissed her cheek. “What names do you like, then?”

            Bilbo tuned out of the conversation at that point, opening his laptop. There was nothing more nauseatingly sweet than pregnant newlyweds and the only thing Bilbo liked nauseating sweet was his coffee. He dumped more sugar into his coffee as he searched Craigslist to check if there were any new apartments listed today.

            Bilbo loved living with Drogo and Primula, but they were newly married and about to be parents, so it was best that he move out. The timing was damned inconvenient, though. It was the spring semester of their senior year of university and though Bilbo knew Primula’s pregnancy had been a happy accident, the timing was not great for any of them. Primula and Drogo had wanted to wait until they graduated and started their careers, but shit happens. There were very few places for rent and most of the landlords Bilbo had contacted didn’t even reply. If he even made it to the viewing stage, it was snatched right out from under his nose, or the current tenant decided that they didn’t want to move out. Bilbo was getting desperate.

That was the only explanation for why he clicked on the listing.

             

**$400 / 1 br        1 Bedroom Available for Midget**

Fully furnished attic bedroom with really low ceilings available in a four bedroom house close to campus. You’d share the kitchen, living room, laundry room, and bathrooms with three male roommates, one giant wolf/bear/dog thing, and approximately 80 billion spiders.

 

The roommates are shitty. One of them is an alcoholic party animal, another is a seven-foot-tall brick shithouse who will break you in half if you look at him wrong, and I’m a business major trying to get my own company off the ground without the time for anyone’s bullshit, least of all yours.

 

Rent is $400 a month and you pay 1/4 of the utilities, which will be around $45 a month. The attic is very spacious and not at all drafty, but like I said, the ceilings are low. Smoking is not allowed, but I do it anyways. You could have a pet, but it will probably get eaten by the Beast. Lease is for the spring semester, Jan to May. Call or email Thorin.

 

 

 

 

            Attached were pictures of the interior and exterior of the house. It was actually a nice house, and Bilbo recognized its exterior as one of the houses he walked by everyday going to classes. It was practically next door to campus! It would only be a five minute walk to his classes. And the price! Okay, so the roommates were insane, but it was only for a couple of months. He had put up with some shitty roommate in the dorms. It was only five months.

            “What do you think, Bilbo?” Drogo asked.

            “Huh?” Bilbo said, looking up from his computer.

            “Opal or May. Which name do you think is better?”

            “May,” Bilbo said, but something in his abstracted air must have caught Drogo’s attention.

            “Did you find something?” he asked.

            “Just a possibility,” Bilbo said.

            “Oooh, let me see,” Primula said. Bilbo turned his computer around and slid it over to Primula and Drogo. They snickered initially at the title, Primula saying, “Well, you are pretty short,” but their expressions grew more concerned as they continued to read.

            “Oh my God, they’re serial killers! All the other midgets they rented it out to are buried under the floorboards,” Primula said.

            “Well, at least he’s…erm…honest,” Drogo said.

            “Oh, come on. It’s not that bad,” Bilbo said. “It’s cheap and really close to campus. It’ll only be for five months.”

            “Listen, we’re not in that much of a hurry to get rid of you! Let you live with some midget-murders and a giant wolf/bear/dog thing? And the spiders! Did you miss the part about the spiders?” Primula asked.

            “He’s probably just exaggerating,” Bilbo said.

            “But what if he’s not? What if you wake up one night with a giant spider on your chest? Oh God, I just gave myself the worst mental image, uggghhh,” Primula wailed, hiding her face in Drogo’s chest.

            “I’m more worried about the giant beast thing. Won’t it eat all the spiders or something?” Drogo said.

            “It’s probably just a large dog who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Look, I’m going to call this Thorin guy right now,” Bilbo said.

            “There’s got to be other places for rent that don’t have giant dogs and giant spiders and mass midget murderer roommates,” Primula protested.

            Bilbo sighed. “No, there aren’t. I’ve been looking every day for this past month. Honestly I couldn’t find a better deal with the price and the distance from campus. I know the roommates might be difficult, but I’m quiet and mostly keep to myself. I can survive for five months.” Bilbo sealed his decision by taking out his phone and dialing the contact number.

            “Put him on speakerphone!” Primula urged.

            “Yeah,” Drogo said.

            While it was still ringing, Bilbo turned on speakerphone and put his phone in the middle of the table.

            After a few more rings, Thorin picked up. “Hello?” he said. His voice was as deep and rich as falling into a twenty gallon vat of dark chocolate. Bilbo felt his pants tighten.

            “Um, hi!” He was so glad Thorin couldn’t see him, his cheeks had heated up and he was positive he was blushing. “My name is Bilbo Baggins. I’m calling about the listing you put on Craigslist.”

            “He sounds _hot_ ,” Primula mouthed.

            “Oh. I didn’t expect a response so quickly,” Thorin said. “Or at all, really.”

            “I know,” Bilbo mouthed back. “Well, I need a place to move into quickly,” he said out loud.

“How tall are you?” Thorin asked.

            “Five three,” Bilbo said. He gave a small laugh. “Is that short enough for you?”

            “Yeah, you should be able to stand up in the attic.”

“When can we schedule a viewing?”

            “Since we’re both in a hurry, would it be possible for you to come over today? Say around four?”

            “Yes. Four o’ clock would be great. See you then,” Bilbo said.

            “Right. See you,” Thorin said, hanging up.

            Bilbo leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and raised his eyebrows at his roommates.

            “Okay, just because he sounds hot doesn’t mean that he isn’t a serial killer,” Primula said.

            “Yeah, we’re definitely coming with you to see the place,” Drogo said.

            “There’s really no need—”

            “We’d like to make sure you’re in good hands, Bilbo,” Primula said firmly.

            Bilbo sighed. “Well, if you must.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to write more Craigslist ads now. 
> 
> **“Expert Treasure Hunter” Wanted**
> 
> “Treasure Hunter” wanted to help take money and house back from ex. You get 1/14 of the loot. Will pay funeral expenses. (P.S. Not actually my ex. Actually a dragon.) Call Thorin for details.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A late Christmas present for everyone.

Though Bilbo had passed this house for years, this was the first time he really paid attention to it. It was a large Victorian painted light blue with a small front porch. A fir tree was in the front yard shedding needles onto the windshields of the two cars in the driveway. Bilbo didn’t have a car. He hoped that one of his roommates would be amiable enough to give him rides if he needed one.

The front yard was fenced, so Bilbo had to reach over and unlatch the gate from the other side. Drogo and Primula followed him as he climbed up the steps and onto the porch. The top half of the door was glass with curtains pulled over it, but a rather messy hallway was visible through the gap in the curtains. Almost immediately the sound of barking came from within. Bilbo peered closer at the door until a sudden impact made him yelp and jump back, colliding with his cousins. A dog had pushed its way past the curtains and was snarling and barking at them. Flecks of spittle flew on the glass and the three of them beat a hasty retreat off the porch.

“Down! Down! Beast, down! Azog! Azog, get your damn dog!” they heard from inside the house.

“Not too late to run yet, Bilbo,” Primula told him.

“I’m…I’m sure the dog is fine around people it knows,” Bilbo said, but he did not feel too confident in his pronouncement.

The dog disappeared and the door opened. “Sorry about that,” Thorin said. His voice was even deeper and sexier in person, and his appearance certainly did his voice justice.

He was exactly Bilbo’s type. Thorin was tall and dressed in a dark, closely fitted t-shirt that showed off muscular arms and a broad chest and shoulders. His hair was long and tied back in a ponytail. Thorin’s beard was short and well-trimmed and Bilbo shivered as he imagined the scrape of whiskers on his upper lip as they kissed or the thrill of stubble against his stomach, working its way down lower. If they had met in a club Bilbo would have taken him home in a heartbeat, but now that they were already home…things got a lot more complicated. Bilbo had never known a relationship with a roommate to be anything but drama.

Someone elbowed him in the back—probably Prim, she had sharp little elbows—and Bilbo realized that Thorin was scowling at him.

“Um, hello!” Bilbo said, giving Thorin a nervous little wave. “I’m Bilbo Baggins. We, er, talked on the phone? These are my cousins.”

Thorin nodded. “Welcome, Mr. Baggins,” he said, holding the door open. Bilbo walked into the house with Drogo and Primula close on his heels.

            Shoes of various shapes and sizes were strewn over the hallway. Bilbo picked his way through them, but Thorin just kicked them to the wall. Bilbo wasn’t sure whether they hadn’t bothered to clean before he arrived, or if this was their version of clean.

            As if he could read Bilbo’s mind, Thorin said, “I didn’t bother to do much cleaning because this is how it normally is. If you won’t be able to handle it, this is not the place for you.”

            “Oh no, I don’t mind really,” Bilbo said, actually minding very much. Well, the shoes were an easy fix, just line them up all nice and neat by the wall…

            A growl interrupted Bilbo’s planning.

            “This is the living room,” Thorin said, leading them to a room off the hallway. It was large and messy, and in the center of the room stood a couch that was currently occupied by one beast and its handler. Bilbo’s terror had not exaggerated the size of the animal. The dog took up the entire couch. Standing up on her hind legs, she was probably seven feet tall and two hundred pounds—significantly larger than Bilbo.

            Her owner was holding her by the collar. Thorin must have woken him up, because he wore a pair of pajama pants and an ill-tempered just-woken-up expression. Bilbo made a mental note to never, ever wake him up.

            “Who are they?” he asked Thorin.

            “They’re coming to see the room. This is Azog. He works nights and Beast is his.”

            “Hello!” Bilbo said, waving.

            Azog waved back, but there was something weird about his hand. Then Bilbo realized that it was a prosthetic. “You need to hurry it up. I have to visit my parole officer today.”

            Oh. Parole officer. That was nice.

            Beast was still growling. Bilbo chuckled nervously. “Is his bark worse than his bite?”

            “No, she definitely bites. Ask Thorin.”

            “Had to get fourteen stitches,” Thorin said, taking off his shirt. Bilbo was so distracted by Thorin’s muscles and ample chest hair that he didn’t notice the scar until Thorin pointed at it. Bilbo winced in sympathy.

            “She…she doesn’t bite _often_ , does she?” Bilbo asked when Thorin put his shirt back on.

            “Not if you run away fast enough,” Azog said. “But as long as you don’t bother her, she’ll ignore you. She just really hates Thorin.”

            “The dislike is mutual,” Thorin said.

            The kitchen was the next stop on their tour, as soon as they carved a path through the debris in living room. Bilbo was looking at the floor to mince his way through the clutter when he stopped suddenly, making Prim and Drogo run into him.

            “Is that a sword?” Bilbo asked, pointing to the floor.

            “Oh, I was wondering where that one was,” Thorin said, picking it up and setting it on the back of the couch.

            “That one? You have more?” Bilbo said.

            “Yeah, about a dozen,” Thorin said.

            Bilbo looked at Prim and Drogo. Prim and Drogo looked at him. Primula mouthed the words “a dozen” at Bilbo. Beast put her head on the top of the couch so she could growl at all of them.

            The last roommate was in the kitchen, but they heard him before they saw him. A loud clang startled the newcomers, making Bilbo jump.

            “What was that?” Bilbo asked, but he saw for himself what it was soon enough when they went through the kitchen door.

            The third roommate was standing shirtless in front of the microwave, another sword in his hand. The blade of the sword was resting in a notch on the top of the microwave. The entire top of the microwave was similarly scored, suggesting that this wasn’t an isolated incident.

            Movement caught Bilbo’s eye and to his horror, the largest spider that Bilbo had ever seen was on top of the microwave, a brown recluse as big as Bilbo’s splayed out hand.

            The man hit the microwave with the sword again, this time successfully slicing the spider in half.

            “This is Thranduil,” Thorin said.

            Thranduil turned around. “I didn’t realize we had guests,” he said.

            “We don’t. He’s looking at the attic.”

            “You might want to clean it up before you show it to him.”

            “What did you do?” Thorin growled.

            “I just cleared out some of the spider nests.”

            Some of the spider nest _s_ , plural. In the attic. Where Bilbo was going to be sleeping.

            “That’s just fucking great. Why the fuck did you do that? You knew we were going to try to rent it out!”

            “I thought that perhaps it would be easier to rent out if there weren’t giant spiders crawling over everything,” Thranduil said. Thorin drew his brows tightly together and clenched his jaw—his face was well-built for anger—and growled out words, while Thranduil was cold and high-handed. His face was carefully still except for his expressive eyebrows. They glared out it each other for a few moments more until the microwave dinged. Thranduil took out his meal and went to the dining room, studiously ignoring Thorin.

            “Let’s go up and see the damage,” Thorin said. The stairs were tucked into the side of the kitchen in between the refrigerator and the laundry room, whose door was currently open, ironing board out with a shirt on it and an iron warming up. It would be a very convenient arrangement for midnight snacks, if the refrigerator didn’t have a lock on it, as well as all of the cabinets had locks on them as well.

            “Um,” Bilbo said, gesturing to the fridge.

            “Beast can open doors. We’ve all got a key to the fridge, but we each have our own cabinets.”

            Thorin flicked the stairwell lights on and they went upstairs. The attic room was large and had a puke green carpet accessorized with spider corpses. It smelled alternately musty and of smoke. The scorch marks on the wood-paneled wall and bits of the carpet were apparently recent.

            The bed was in a far corner under the sloping part of the roof without any sheets on. The bedside table was next to it, but the lamp had been knocked off in whatever scuffle Thranduil had with the spiders. A metal bar ran the length of the room on the bed side serving as a closet. The dresser was across from the bed on the other wall, all the drawers pulled out. There was a chair in one corner with a floral sort of pattern that only a mostly blind grandmother would pick, but there was not much left of the actual upholstery between all the sword slashes. Couldn’t they kill spiders with shoes like normal people? It looked like burglars had ransacked the place, taking everything but the heavy furniture and leaving dead spiders littered on the floor.

            “I don’t think we’ll be able to get the scorch marks out, but other than that, everything can be fixed,” Thorin said.

            “Uh huh,” Bilbo said. Now would be a really good time to nope on outta here, but then where else would he go? If he stayed with Drogo and Primula, he’d just be a burden to them while they were starting a new chapter of their lives. On the other hand, giant spiders. Giant spiders in his _bedroom_. Giant _venomous_ spiders in his bedroom. Possibly homicidal roommates with sword collections. Definitely archnicidal roommates with a poor idea of fire safety. Ex-con roommates that looked like he could murder Bilbo easily and not have any qualms about it. Giant Beasts who definitely bite.

            “Would you mind giving us a moment?” Primula asked Thorin in her sweetest tone. Thorin nodded and went back down the stairs.

            “You’re not seriously thinking of taking this place, are you?” she asked.

            “It’s not that bad,” Bilbo said.

            “Not that bad—! Not that bad?” Primula started to shout, but lowered her voice so the people downstairs wouldn’t hear her. “Are we seeing the same things?”

            “Look, it’s nothing I can’t live with for a few months.”

            “Bilbo, you don’t have to go. We don’t mind if you stay for a little longer, the baby’s quite a ways away,” Drogo said.

            “And we really don’t want to name him Bilbo after our best friend who got killed by a bunch of sword-wielding psychopaths,” Prim said.

            “Don’t you think you’re blowing things a little out of proportion?” Bilbo said.

            “No, I do not think I am blowing things out of proportion!” Primula whisper-shouted.

            Bilbo pinched his forehead and sighed. “I know you don’t approve, but this is my decision to make, and I’m going to make it.”

            “We’re just worried about your safety,” Prim said, holding Bilbo by the shoulders.

            “I know, I know. They may seem a little…strange, but I don’t think that they’d actually hurt me.”

            “That’s what everyone says until they get hurt,” Drogo said.  

            “Your objections have been noted, but it’s my decision, and I’m taking the place. That’s final,” Bilbo said. He walked downstairs to the kitchen. Thorin was leaning against the counter, looking fine, arms crossed in a way that made his muscles pop. Thranduil had finished his meal and was ironing his shirt. They both looked up when Bilbo came down.

            “I’ve decided to take it,” he said.

            “You are?” Thranduil said, eyebrows raising.

            “See? I told you we didn’t have to try to act normal,” Thorin told Thranduil, hitting him on the chest.

            Thraduil frowned. “It certainly wouldn’t have hurt.”

            “No it would not have,” Bilbo said.

            “Let me go get the lease,” Thorin said, leaving the kitchen.

            “Welcome aboard,” Thranduil said in a tone Bilbo didn’t quite like.


	3. Chapter 3

            Thorin arrived with the lease contract and they all relocated to the dining room table, which was as battle-hardened and fire-scarred as the rest of the house.

            Thorin handed him his copy of the lease and Bilbo started to read it. He had been taught to always read contracts, and had become rather good at deciphering them.

            “Just the usual. An individual lease for your share of the house, waivers, et cetera,” Thorin said.

            “What kind of waivers?” Bilbo asked, thumbing through the packet of papers.

            “Liability, mostly.”

            “Why do I need to sign a liability waiver?” Bilbo asked. That certainly was not in the standard boilerplate contract.

            “Have you seen this place?” Azog asked.

            “We had a bad experience with the last renter,” Thorin said, glaring at Azog. He didn’t seemed to be the least bit fazed.

            “What sort of bad experience?”

            “A minor injury that he, unfortunately, overreacted to,” Thranduil said.

            “It was only a little necrotic,” Thorin said.

“He didn’t even lose any limbs! I don’t know what he was complaining about,” Azog said.

            “ _Necrotic?_ ” Bilbo asked, feeling a little faint.

            “Really, if he had gone to the doctor when I told him to, they could have administered the antivenom in time,” Thranduil said.

            “Wait, wait, what?” Bilbo said.

            “Brown recluse spider bites sometimes cause necrosis. Not often, though. He was just unlucky,” Thranduil said, glaring at his two roommates.

            “Oh,” Bilbo asked faintly.

            “He didn’t die, he just moved out after the whole necrosis thing,” Thorin said. “And he tried to sue us and the landlord, so you can see why we’re understandably cautious.”

            Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the looming threat of cellular death due to giant spider bites. But whatever it was, Bilbo was starting to feel a bit faint. He tried to breathe deeply, but that only served to make him more lightheaded.

            “Really, as long as you get treatment immediately after the bite, there’s no need to fuss,” Thranduil said.

            “I need air,” Bilbo gasped. Primula immediately started to fan him and Drogo looked ready to spring into action.

            “There’s a door to the backyard in the kitchen,” Thorin said.

            Bilbo nodded. That would be a good idea. He stood up, slightly wobbily, and went into the kitchen with the intention to try get some fresh air and not faint from the idea of _necrotic lesions_ and _giant spiders_ , but of course that was difficult to do when one of the giant spiders decided to scuttle out onto the floor right in front of you.

            “Nope,” Bilbo said, and he was out like a light.

 

            Bilbo woke up to the sound of growling. He opened his eyes, squinted, and then blinked a bit when he could not identify his surroundings. Then he turned to the source the noise of the growling and when he saw Beast, it all came rushing back to him.

            “Are you all right?” Primula asked, swooping down on him.

            “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Bilbo said. “A hot drink wouldn’t go amiss, though.”

            “I have something even better,” Thranduil said, handing him a glass. Bilbo took a large gulp of it without really caring what it was and was surprised to discover that it was brandy. What was he, a swooning Victorian maiden?

            “Sorry about that. I’m a bit of a fainter,” Bilbo said.

            “Bilbo, do still you want to go outside and get some fresh air?” Primula said. The tone of her voice strongly implied that the correct answer was _yes_.

            “That would be a good idea,” he said, standing up and taking his glass of brandy with him.

            When the crossed the kitchen to get outside, Bilbo couldn’t help but scour the floor for signs of the spider. He saw a fresh spider corpse curled up near the stove and wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or to still be terrified.

            “Let’s just go now. The gate’s over there,” Drogo whispered.

            “What? I’m not just going to run away!” Bilbo said. “Besides, I still have their glass.”       “Drink it and leave it on the porch, just hurry up! Come on, let’s go,” Primula said, tugging on Bilbo’s free hand.

            “I’m not leaving!” Bilbo said.

            Primula got very close to Bilbo, so close that their noses were almost touching. “Bilbo, you know we love you, but we really didn’t think you’d be this stubborn about something that is obviously not a good fit for you.”

            “What choice do I have, Prim?”

            “You could keep staying with us! The baby isn’t due until September”

            Bilbo sighed. “I know. But I want you two to have some time together, to work things out, you know? First you lived with your parents, then you lived in a dorm, then you both lived with me. I think it’d be good for you to live on your own a bit, to be able to be newlyweds, before leaping straight into buying your own house and having a baby.”

            “But there has to be some place other than this!” Drogo protested.

            “There’s not. Look, I know it’s not ideal, but I can live with it. I can just stay in my room most of the time. I think they’d actually prefer if I did, actually.”

            Bilbo’s glass was empty, so he gave his cousins a reassuring smile and headed back inside.

            “Don’t feel like you have to sacrifice anything for our sake, Bilbo,” Drogo said.

            Bilbo didn’t have the time to reply before they were in earshot of the others. They were still at the table, but there was every sign of a recent argument on their faces.

            “I’ll take it,” Bilbo said, shooting what he hoped was a smile at them.

            “Really?” they chorused in surprise.

            “See, I told you so. I’d know that look of desperation anywhere,” Azog said, elbowing Thorin.

            “Hmph,” Thorin said.

Bilbo sat back down at the table where the contract was and started to sign it. When it was finished, he handed it back to Thorin, who then took it to wherever important legal documents were stored in this madhouse.

            “Excellent!” Thranduil said, clapping his hands. “When can you move in?”

            “As soon as possible.”

            “I don’t think Thorin is doing anything tomorrow,” Thranduil said.

            “What are you volunteering me for?” Thorin shouted from wherever he was.

            “You have a truck, and Bilbo here has things that need to be moved,” Thranduil said.

            “I also have _plans_ ,” Thorin growled as he reentered the room.

            “Nothing important, I’m sure,” Thranduil said.

            “Well, not as important as getting my hair or nails done, Princess, but pretty damn important to me,” Thorin sneered.

            Bilbo, who had been sitting there uncomfortably for the exchange, started to say, “It’s fine, I don’t really have much—”

            “No, no. I insist. Thorin wouldn’t be so rude as to refuse to help our new roommate, would he?”

            “I certainly would,” Thorin said.

            “No, really, you don’t have to do anything—”

            “What time do you want him to come pick you up?”

            “Uhh, twelve? That is, he doesn’t have to help me at all, if he doesn’t want to—”

            “I don’t,” Thorin said.

            Well, that was just rude, Bilbo thought.

            “Listen, we have another appointment we need to be at shortly,” Drogo said, cutting in.

            “Yes, right, of course!” Bilbo said, standing up and holding his copy of the lease.

            “It was a pleasure meeting you,” Thranduil said, standing up in one graceful motion to shake everyone’s hands. Bilbo stood for a moment more, not really sure if he was going to shake hands with the rest of them or not. Azog gave him a little wave like the one he had greeted them with, but Thorin was just sitting there, stewing.

            “Right. Well, we’ll be off then. See you…tomorrow, I guess?” Bilbo said.


	4. Chapter 4

            Bilbo spend most of the night packing up his belongings. In the morning, Primula and Drogo helped him load everything into Primula’s car, and they headed to Bilbo’s new house.

            “Still not too late,” Primula said as she pulled into the driveway.

            “I signed the lease! I’ve already packed up!”

            “Still not too late,” Drogo said.

            Bilbo went up and knocked on the door, but being prepared for Beast didn’t make her any less terrifying. When Beast had been restrained and Bilbo’s heart stopped beating a mile a minute, they started coming in with boxes of Bilbo’s things.

            “Oof! What’s in these things?” Primula asked, trying to pick up a box but quickly setting it down.

            “Books!” Bilbo replied.

            “You have way too many books,” Drogo said as he tried to ascend the stairs backwards.  He and Bilbo were hauling one of Bilbo’s many bookcases into Bilbo’s new room.

            “Which bathroom is yours?” Primula asked, as she was currently holding a box of Bilbo’s toiletries.

            “He’ll be sharing a bathroom with Thorin,” Thranduil said. He was watching the move from the dining table, where he had his laptop out. “It’s the third one on the right down that hallway.”

            Later, in the privacy of Bilbo’s new room, Primula told him, “You get to share the bathroom with the hot one. I trust there will be a lot of accidental voyeurism in your future.”

            “Prim!” Bilbo spluttered.

            Primula just laughed.

            It was midafternoon before Bilbo was fully moved in, but once he had, the room didn’t look so bad. It looked like a home, not just a spider sepulcher.

            “See, this isn’t so bad! And we haven’t seen a spider yet!” Bilbo said. (Though he had noticed privately that perhaps there were more burn marks on the carpet than there had been yesterday…)

            “It’s not the room I was worried about. It’s the roommates,” Primula said.

            “Let’s go downstairs and make friends with them, then! You can stay for dinner, I’ll order pizza for everyone—”

            “Sorry honey, but we’re going to have to take a pass. You know. Baby. Tired pregnant lady.”

            “Sorry for tiring you out,” Bilbo said, giving Primula a hug. He was pretty sure that it was just an excuse to not stay, but he couldn’t really blame her. He was dreading going down and meeting the roommates too.

            So he waved Primula and Drogo goodbye and tried to start his first day in the new house off in style.

            “I’m thinking of ordering pizza. Do you know what everybody likes?” he asked Thranduil as he entered the dinig room.

            “I like vegetarian pizza, I neither know nor care what the other two like.”

            “Right. Vegetarian it is. Thank you,” Bilbo said. Apparently he was going to have to ask the other two in person.

            Bilbo tentatively knocked at Thorin’s bedroom door.

            “What do you want?” Thorin snapped.

            “Um, it’s me, Bilbo. I was planning on ordering pizza, and I was wondering what kind you liked.”

            “Supreme,” Thorin grunted.

            “Ok. Thanks,” Bilbo said.

            He knocked on Azog’s door next. As soon as his hand hit the wood of the door, Beast started growling.

            “What?” Azog growled as well.

            “I’mgettingyouapizzawhatdoyouwantonit?” Bilbo said. His tongue tripped over the words in his haste to get them out in the hopes the no one would murder him.

            Agonizing silence, punctuated by the low, rolling sound of Beast’s growling like thunder, stretched on before he finally said, “Pepperoni, sausage, onions.”

            “Kaythanksbye,” Bilbo said, and fled back to the safety of the dining room. He called the pizza place and placed the order and then sat down next to Thranduil.

            “Are they always so grumpy?”

            “Yes,” Thranduil said, not looking up from his typing. “You really shouldn’t disturb Azog when he’s sleeping. Unless of course, there’s food.”

            “Ok, thanks. That’s a nice thing to know,” Bilbo said. “What’s up with Thorin, then?”

            “I don’t know. He’s so secretive. I haven’t been able to find out what he’s doing, only it’s something to do with metal for his business.”

            “What is Thorin’s business?”

            “Swords.”

            “He’s in…the sword business?”

            “He does other blacksmithing too, but I think it’s mostly swords. That’s where all these came from,” he said, waving his hand.

            “Oh,” Bilbo said.

            “Also, word of warning: the spiders like to get in your clothes and shoes. Leave your shoes upside down and make sure to shake out your clothes before you put them on.”

            “Oh,” Bilbo said faintly. “Thank you.”

            “That’s what happened to the last one. Wasn’t paying attention when he put his clothes on and the spider inside his shirt bit him.”

            “Thank you. Thank you for this…information.”

            “He didn’t even notice the bite at first; they’re often not painful. But then the veins start to turn blue and the skin starts dying. Now, if he had been smart, he would have said something the first time he noticed, but it was only when he was in a lot of pain and had finally developed necrotic lesions that he went to the hospital. There was nothing they could do but take a chunk of his skin out.”

            “Yes, thank you Thranduil, that is quite enough,” Bilbo said.

            “And then of course he said it was our fault, which it clearly wasn’t, since none of us knew that he had been bitten and he waited until there was nothing the doctors could do for it—”

            “Yes, thank you, thank you—”

            The doorbell rang. Bilbo had never been so glad for pizza in his life. He paid the pizza boy and set the pizzas down on the dining table. Thranduil got a plate and picked his pizza out of the pile while Bilbo went to go tell the others that the pizza was ready.

            “Pizza’s here,” Bilbo said, knocking on Thorin’s door. He wasn’t quite sure if he should do the same to Azog, and eventually decided against it. The pizza will be there whenever he felt like eating it.

            Bilbo was eating his own pizza when Thorin came out and joined them. Bilbo was even more surprised when Azog came out and started to eat as well. However, it was clear that it was Beast that was calling the shots, as she stared down everybody with food. Azog put one piece of pizza on his plate and then gave another slice to Beast. She took it and trotted to the couch, where she ate it in privacy.

            “Is it good?” Bilbo asked.

            There were murmurs of affirmation from everyone else, so nothing had gone terribly wrong. Bilbo felt pleased at himself for making a good impression and successfully pulling off his first dinner with the new roomies.

            Beast came back to the table for more, and Bilbo decided to give her one of his slices as a gesture of goodwill and a deterrent from future growling and/or mauling. “Come here girl,” he said, holding out a slice to her. She came up to Bilbo, sniffed his hand and the slice of pizza, then took it in her mouth and ran away back to the couch, thankfully not taking Bilbo’s hand with her.

            “So how was everyone’s day?” Bilbo asked.

            “I finished most of my homework,” Thranduil said.

            “I’ve been working on something,” Thorin said cryptically.

            “I just woke up,” Azog said.

            “Well, I just finished moving in, and I have to say, my room looks nice and homey now,” Bilbo said. “And I haven’t seen a single spider today!”

            “Just give it time,” Thorin said.

            Bilbo decided that he was going to ignore that, so he changed the subject. “We’re going to be sharing a bathroom, Thorin, so I was wondering what your schedule was. My earliest class doesn’t start until eleven.”

            “I have mostly morning classes, so that shouldn’t be a problem,” Thorin said.

            “Great!”

            Beast came back up to table. Azog gave her another piece and she went back to the couch with it. Bilbo watched as she chewed on the slice of pizza, sending crumbs everywhere. She set it down for a bit—topping side down, of course, so sauce got all over the couch—before finally finishing it.

            “Do you usually just let her eat on the couch?” Bilbo asked.

            “Why? Do you think you can stop her from eating on the couch?” Azog said.

            “Point taken,” Bilbo said, mentally resigning himself to regular cleaning of the couch.

            As the rest of them chewed in silence, Bilbo cast around for another topic of conversation. Thranduil was staring at the ceiling and Thorin and Azog were glaring grumpily at nothing.  They weren’t exactly a loquacious bunch, were they? Maybe this would be easier than he thought. It appeared that they ignored each other most of the time anyways. Surely they’d extend him the same courtesy.

            Thranduil got up and left the table. He still had a half-eaten slice of pizza on his plate, so Bilbo assumed he was going to the bathroom or something, but he returned a few seconds later, sword in hand. He stood on his chair, stepped onto the table, then jumped off the table and pushed off the wall and hit the ceiling with the sword.

            Bilbo saw something small and dark fall to the table as Thranduil landed perfectly on his feet on the table. He stepped down, sitting back in his chair and leaning the sword against the leg of the chair.

            “Thranduil! That was my food!” Thorin said, holding up his plate. There were two halves of a spider on his slice of pizza.

            Thranduil shrugged.

            Thorin started yelling again, but Bilbo wasn’t paying attention. He was starting dumbly out into space. When he had finally regained his bearing, he cleared his throat. It was best to state boundaries clearly, firmly, and vocally. Right. He could do this.

            “Thranduil, no spider-killing sword parkour at the table,” Bilbo said in the tone of a preschool teacher gently explaining to a student what he had done wrong.

            Azog snorted. “You heard him.”

            “Really, it’s just bad table manners,” Bilbo said.

            “I didn’t know it would land on Thorin’s food,” Thranduil said with airy unconcern.

            “Even if it didn’t land on someone’s food, it’s still not a good idea to rain spider corpses from above,” Bilbo pointed out gently.

            Thorin would not be satisfied, Thranduil admitted to no wrongdoing, and Bilbo realized he had spoken too soon about his first dinner being a smashing success. Bilbo had ended up giving the spider-contaminated slices to Beast, who didn’t care a bit and ate them gladly. Thus ended the first dinner together: with a whimper (Bilbo’s) and a bang (Thorin and Thranduil’s doors).


End file.
